Doll houses and creative juices

A few years ago my children got a beautiful doll house made of natural wood, and I was so excited... I love natural wood toys, and this one was particularly well made. But after playing for a little while (like, two hours) they never went back to it again...

I was puzzled, and attributed to the fact that boys and miniature houses maybe are not a good fit... until my 6 year old son started his "house project." He was so excited he worked on it for days. He would wake up in the morning with all these ideas he wanted to incorporate into his project, and it has been so rewarding for him. He shows it to everyone that comes to our house, and he always says (with a very happy look): "It's all homemade".

I learned my lesson... at least for my kids, the capacity to transform common things into something else is deeply satisfying, and giving them the final product is not necessarily what will inspire them to create.

Icon writing

Our Art History class for today

I have been searching for a good video to show the process of icon writing, and this one is one of the best.

A new art project

After working with Mona Brookes' book "Drawing with children" for a little while, we were searching for new challenges, and we discovered these wonderful step by step drawing videos on You Tube. They are very clear, with no talking at all, and can be followed very easily, at one's own pace. They are focused on drawing animals, but there is such a large variety that there is something for every taste.

This is what my 9 year old draw in around 20 minutes...

 

Here is a link to the tutorial video:

 

You can see the rest of the videos here

How to draw animals